no, we aren't a nation of migrants

over the years, i've heard many politicians use a variation of this theme: "we are a nation of migrants, whether we or our ancestors came here by waka, boat or airplane". this phrase is used when the politician is addressing ethnic minorities who are mostly assumed to be migrants rather than locals, in attempt to show that we nz'ers are all equal and that migrants shouldn't be discriminated against.

i'd sit there and listen to this without thinking much of it, until the day i was sitting next to a maori women who expressed just how offensive that phrase is. her point was that it was a way of invalidating the indigenous status of maori, by equating them with all who have come to nz, but more importantly, equating them with the british migrants who colonised this country and were the source of dispossessing the indigenous population.

more than that, it diminishes the maori struggle for justice via the treaty. after all, as this woman pointed out to me, having settled here over 1,000 years should be enough to lose the migrant tag. that history should be enough to deserve the recognition of being indigenous peoples, which has certain implications and gives rise to certain responsibilities on a state that has been the mechanism of dispossession and oppression. hence why we have this (pdf), which nz is now a signatory to.

by making these points, i'm not saying that migrants are less than. there is no hidden implication that being a migrant is a bad thing, or that if you're a migrant or children of migrants, that you are somehow deserving of fewer rights or are less of a nz'er than another person. i'm just saying that the use of the term migrant in this context and in this way is incorrect in a way that is harmful, particularly to our indigenous peoples but also to others.

the statement ignores the fact that different groups of migrants are treated differently in this country. when you see stories in the media of migrants who are in danger of being sent back to their countries of origin, and the angle is that this is a terrible thing to be doing, those migrants are invariably white. not always, just almost always.

and they are described a the "right kind of migrant", which is a clear dogwhistle. although those who use the term would claim "we mean the kind of migrant that is working hard and contributing to this country". except that almost all migrants are trying to do that - whether by running dairies or driving taxis or taking up some other kind of self-employment because the job market actively discriminates against them. but their stories of being sent back don't hit the news all that much, and if they do, they don't often get too much sympathy.

academics describe the different treatement of various groups of migrants as a dichotomy between invisible vs visible migrants. invisible migrants (in this country) tend to be white and tend not to be called migrants at all. yes, they still face the difficult issues of resettlement, but they are able to integrate into our society much more easily because that society tends to be very much more accepting of them. the word migrant tends to be used as a synonym for ethnic minority, invariably for people of colour, be they migrant or local born.

following on from that, the statement also equalises the history of migrants from non-british countries. some of these people migrated here in the 19th & early 20th centry, but they came into an oppressive system, which included a poll tax, a complete lack of inclusion into general society , even official descriptions in government statistics such as "pagans & heathens". they didn't have the same ability to have family members migrate and join them as british migrants. their experiences were not the same and they shouldn't be equalised.

nor were they part of the colonising group - they pretty much weren't allowed to be because of that social exclusion thing. and even if they were allowed to be, there's no evidence that they would have wanted to be. so that statement equalising us all as migrants or descendants of migrants loses all of these distinctions and distorts our history in a way that is patently unfair.

migrants of colour shouldn't be discriminated against. but the reason for that isn't that we are all just a country of migrants. if what you really mean is that people should not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character, then say that. if you mean that people shouldn't be discriminated against merely because they migrated to this country instead of being born here, then say that. stop hiding some pretty big injustices and equalising in ways that are totally inappropriate.

we aren't all migrants in this country. there's nothing wrong with being a migrant. all migrants aren't treated with equal welcome into this country, and migrants of colour face hurdles that other migrants often don't have to face. we have a history that is problematic. that is our reality. be open and honest about it and you'll get more respect. from me at least.

All the coolest people's ancestors came here by boat

What are "boat people"?

A.  People who like boats (in the manner of "cat people" or "dog people")

B.  People who transform into boats (there has to be an Autobot or Decepticon who does that already, surely)

C.  People who are made from boats (could explain the contents of some people's heads...)

D.  A good name for a band.  (Already taken I'm certain)

E.  Or a fashion label. 

F.  People who constantly wear boat shoes (more or less fashionable than crocs?  Hmmm)

G.  None of the above.

If you answered G you may want to read further.  If you didn't, well there's the whole rest of the internet for you my friend.

Most of my ancestors came here by boat, how about yours?  Does it really matter how people who immigrate to Aotearoa New Zealand get here?

Oh it's not actually about the method of transportation, it's about why they want to come. 

You mean because of the persecution and possible death facing them and their family in their home country?

Because that's why someone takes the incredible risk, and often puts their children in that situation too, of getting into a small boat, often crudely constructed and/or poorly equipped, and sets off to shores almost entirely unknown.  They have to trust total strangers who seem to care more about money than they do about their passengers, leave behind anything they had, face the perils of the journey itself, and, if they are aimed in the rough direction of Australia, the likely outcome of mandatory detention in awful conditions potentially for years.  They may even get sent back again, to wherever they were so desperate to flee from.

There is also no one Correct Way to be an asylum seeker.  Just as there is no one Correct Way to be a rape victim or a sex worker or a female Prime Minister or a feminist blogger.    It is indeed possible to be multiple things simultaneously; like an asylum seeker who is also an arsehole or a bit dodgy.  That doesn't make their claim for asylum any less valid.  We shouldn't have to like someone to want them to be safe.

I was really proud when Helen Clark offered to take some of the refugees who were on the Tampa and so cruelly misused by the Australian political system at the time.  Some of those people have settled in my own community, which is great.  Did that decision create a great flood of illegitimate refugees clamouring at Customs to get in, sneaking up the beaches and into the bush?  No, and neither did the eventual decision to allow Ahmed Zaoui and his family to live here.  But what a difference for those individuals, many of them children. 

Aotearoa New Zealand usually takes up to 750 UNHCR quota refugees a year.  To put that in context, over 5000 people immigrate from Britain to live here every single year.  

What's so scary about one boatload of asylum seekers?  Don't worry, it's unlikely they are wearing boat shoes.

dealing with abuse

a post on emotional abuse from an unexpected source. i agree with most of it, and many of the bits i don't agree with have been covered well in comments. i would hesitate to say that one form of abuse is actually worse than another (physical abuse can be pretty awful), but i'd really recommend going over to cactus kate's blog to have a read.

and funnily enough, as i was in the middle of reading this post, i was rung by a person who wants help to write a report to support a woman who is applying for residence under the victims of domestic violence category. some of the most vulnerable women in the country are those who are here without residency status of their own - their partner has a work permit or they have married/ entered into a relationship with a nz citizen or resident.

in the latter case the partner will threaten loss of support for her residency application if the woman tries to leave or tries to tell anyone about the abuse. he may also hold her passport to prevent her leaving the country. in other cases, because divorce is stigmatised in some cultures or because she has entered the relationship without the consent of her family, going back to her country of origin will be as abusive or dangerous to her as staying in this country. she feels completely trapped.

hence the domestic violence category for immigration, which was won through significant lobbying by some strong ethnic minority women in this country. it at least gives these women an option to leave and try to build a better life in nz for themselves and any children they might have. but even if they take that option, they have to survive with little support - they are often isolated from their communities by their abuser and possibly by a sense of shame. it's hard to survive when you don't have a circle of friends and family to call on, and when you are feeling a lack of self-confidence due the type of emotional abuse that cactus kate describes.

this is why i find that my involvement with shama (hamilton ethnic women's centre) is so important and valuable to me. at least there is a place to go where these women will find active support in dealing with agencies and the legal system, as well as programmes they can join to help them build up a social network.

i'm really hoping that this particular case goes well and leads to a happy outcome for this particular woman. none of the options are wonderful, but i think this is the best one for her. it does, ultimately, depend on the community around her to welcome her in and make her feel a part of it, regardless of her ethnicity or theirs.

how is that my fault exactly?

one of the most common things i hear, which is the flipside to "this is MY country, so you have to do everything MY way", is the old "but in THEIR countries we're not allowed to do XYZ, so why should THEY get to do ABC here".

the most offensive thing about the second statement: is the pretty strong implication that nz can never be the country of someone who has chosen to live here. if someone talking to me starts a sentence with "but in your country (countries)", i'm very likely to interrupt them with "listen f**ckface, your next sentence better be about nz, because that's the ONLY country i belong to". well no, i won't say exactly that, it'll probably be a politer variant.

but there's a deeper injustice going on here. just because some random country has some horrific sh*t happening to some of its citizens is not a reason to deny me rights in this country. it's likely i've never been in that country, i certainly don't have voting rights in that country and it might be a country that doesn't even have democracy. it's also likely that i totally disagree with what's happening in that country in the same way that you do. in fact, it's also very likely that a good number of the population of said country also object to the stuff happening there, hence arab spring for example.

so given all of that, why should i be denied any of the rights available to any other citizen in nz, when i have absolutely no connection to nor responsibility for stuff that's happening somewhere else in the world? and yet you hear it on talkback radio, in letters to the editor, on facebook and most other forums you could name.

there's yet another layer of nastiness involved in this kind statement. lets say i do come from one of those countries where some particular human rights abuse is happening. aside from the fact that this may be exactly why i've chosen to leave that country, there's a strong element of revenge involved here. in other words, what the speaker is effectively saying is "some people i identify with are being treated badly in your country of origin. therefore, i seek revenge by at least denying you some basic rights in this country". it's a tit-for-tat type sentiment that is not only unjust, but is plain ugly.

it's without any kind of sense or logic, and yet adult people are using this argument all the time. i don't get how they can't immediately see the sheer stupidity of it.

The benefits of Travelling While White

I've just come back from the activity that has made me most think about white privilege. Travel. Every time I cross national borders, following all the rules we have deemed necessary to move from one arbitrary idea of place to another, I am slapped in the face again with how much easier it is to do this when you're white.

Now I know this isn't exactly news. Helen Clark even officially apologised in 2002 to Chinese New Zealanders about immigration discrimination going back to 1881 - when Chinese migrants had to pay 10 quid for migrating while being Chinese.

And then there were the dawn raids in the 1970s, when Pacifica people were targeted by the Police for "overstaying". Were they? Yep, probably, some of them. But given Pacifica migration over that period was tiny in comparison with our largest group of temporary migrants (then as nearly always, British people), the dawn raids focus seems curious. After all, if the real issue was overloading social services and resources, as claimed, shouldn't we have been worried about those pesky white people?




But travelling still prods me into thinking about being white. First there's all that racial profiling that goes on in airports. You know, who customs officials stop and 'randomly' search. Disproportionately when travelling in Europe, the Caribbean, south east Asia, hell any airport I've walked through, the people who have been stopped and searched have been people of colour. So even though I often look like a bit of a scruffy hippy.....because I am a bit of a scruffy hippy.....I've been stopped maybe once. In quite a bit of travelling. But I've been on flights, several times, where the only people searched have been people of colour.

This, of course, has ramifications down the line. One of the manifestations of my dislike for national borders is my (extremely white privileged) recurring "forgetting to bring my passport" problem. I can blame this on thinking you should be in an airport to need it (rather than a train station or boat), I can say I'm ideologically opposed to immigration controls. Those things are both true. But somehow, I doubt my forgetting passport experiences would be quite as funny as stories if I wasn't white, because I think the consequences would have been more serious.

Now I don't want to make this sound like it's every second trip. But I have been deported, denied entry, and, on one memorable occasion, held for 8 hours in Brussels in a room with a number of other people the Belgian immigration police were investigating. In that holding cell, I was the only white person. Everyone else being "investigated" was Black, from the Indian sub-continent, or Arabic looking. I couldn't talk to everyone there as my language range is pretty limited, but since many people were allowed to leave while I was there, I don't think I was in a cell with scary terrorists. I think I was in a cell with people Travelling While of Colour.

Another trip through Australia, a friend travelling on a British passport was strip-searched. Her passport wasn't relevant, they didn't look at it until afterwards. I'm not sure the same was true about her ethnicity - Egyptian mother, Indian father.

Travelling While of Colour again, what was she thinking?

Going into the UK remains an all-time low point for me, I have to say, and since I lived there for more than a decade, I've done it many, many times. I've sat waiting at Heathrow to go through immigration while an Arabic man vomited continuously next to me, and when I asked for medical attention from the officials, been told "he's just putting it on to get into the country."

Which brings me to another white privilege activity.

I make up different professions for my immigration forms, because I object to being asked what I do for a living. So far I've been a rocket scientist, a farmer, an astronaut, a professional sportswoman, a rock star......the only time I've felt even vaguely guilty about this was when I said I was a brain surgeon. I've fainted about once or twice a year all of my adult life, so it's likely if tested on this one I'd have had trouble.

I find the silly risk-taking to poke fun at such an irrelevent piece of bureaucracy amusing.

But then, I expect immigration to be something which is all White for me.

Immigrant

I was described as an expat again this week. I've started correcting people and telling them I'm an immigrant.

I think the term 'ex-pat' has its place - others may disagree on the definition, but to me it describes people who live in a new country for a significant but finite period of time, maintain strong links to their country of origin, primarily associate with people from their country of origin - or other expats in general. They often work for international organisations, are (semi) retired or run a small business, particularly in hospitality. Most of those using the term, though, and most of those about who it is used tend to be white and middle class to wealthy.

Those who come from poorer countries to wealthier ones, work to send money home in low paid jobs, hoping to return in a few years, often associating primarily with those of the same national origin/who speak the same language tend to be classed as immigrants. I've no idea what terms people in this position prefer, but it underscores just how so many of the negative connotations of 'immigrant' are based in racism.

Immigrant or migrant are pretty neutral terms for me. They describe what I've done - migrated from one place to live in another. I confess I like challenging people's perceptions, pinpointing why they thought I'd not consider that term to apply to me - or for it to be an insult. At the same time I don't want to do that by reinforcing the idea that I must be a better type of immigrant because I'm white/English speaking etc.

Use of the expat term does make sense to me, though, for those who feel it accurately describes them. It's hard to find the words to talk about experiences of migration, to pinpoint one's own specific experience. So many differentiations - economic migrant, for example - have acquired negative connotations. Sometimes I really want to be able to describe my migration experience in a way that gives a more specific impression, without shunting the conversation off track or going into the details of what was a somewhat complicated and at times really painful experience.

I played with the word refugee for a while, but ultimately felt it appropriative. Yes, that may describe my reasons for leaving the place I grew up but (a) I believe I would be physically safe if I went back now (b) I have always had a passport that allowed me to settle in other places to New Zealand without going through a significant process and (c) I did not apply for residency status as a refugee (and wouldn't've been accepted if I had) and had a vastly easier ride by having other options opened to me. These may or may not be logical reasons - I'm aware that the definition and understanding of the term differ globally and historically - but it just doesn't feel right.

These words don't describe any of our experiences, really. The closest I've come is queer diasporic but that annoys me on semantic grounds, and is only half the story anyway. I don't mean that words like migrant aren't all of who we are - that's a given. I'm talking about the story - about the advantages my whiteness and financial resources and education afforded me, about the stress, the fat and disability discrimination, which were still less than some people experience, the assumptions that this was for fun when it was for survival, the knowledge that I was not faced with the discrimination queer friends faced immigrating to other countries, the mixed feelings when I had no relatives left in the country I spent most of my life, and as laws and situations changed and I began to feel guilty for feeling unsafe, for not sticking it out, for not fighting harder, the denial of people as to just how bad things were. How much I love my home and this city and how I'm still scared enough that my passport is permanently in my handbag.

There are people who could reverse every statement I've made to make it true for them. And in the end, that's why I've increasingly become comfortable describing myself as an immigrant. Because I'm not going to be able to describe my experience in a few sentences, it's better than making a poor attempt to use a word which I know can carry so many varied stories.

cameron on immigration

as per a request from deborah, i'm cross-posting this piece from my own blog. i feel a little nervous about putting up certain issues here, especially around areas where i feel vulnerable. but here it is. on another note, i'll be appearing on Q & A this sunday morning, talking about religious issues which will be linked to the afghanistan situaion and religious violence in general, as well as a couple of other topics.


david cameron has been making a lot of noise about immigration of late. in that it's all bad, of course, and the narrative is the usual stuff we hear from the right: that immigrants are parasites who are a drain on the nation and suck all the nation's resources or steal all "our" jobs while giving nothing back in return.

of course he doesn't attack all immigrants, just the non-integrating kind who won't learn english. nice coded language, with the dog-whistling very thinly disguised. it seems mr cameron is following the john howard policy of out-pauline-hansening pauline hansen. in mr cameron's case, it's the BNP he's emulating, knowing that attacking a particular class of people will guarantee votes and increase popularity.

but it's more than that. mr cameron is using underlying racism and hatred as a cover for massive cuts in welfare. he's trying to soften the electorate for cuts by linking it to hatred of certain types of immigrants. UK wouldn't need these immigrants, he says, if only the welfare system wasn't so generous. by changing this, locals would be forced to do the work currently done by immigrants. more than that, people are apparently immigrating to UK because the welfare system is so good, therefore it should be made less good in order to remove that incentive.

as always, missing from the right-wing narrative are the real benefits that migrants bring to the country. given the way immigrations laws are in most countries, immigrants will be highly educated, but more than that, highly motivated to succeed. i doubt they migrate to end up on welfare. listening to the stories of migrants, and i've heard many, they have dreams of success for themselves and their children and a drive to achieve that success.

also missing is the realisation that these cuts to welfare translate into misery and hunger for a large number of people. people who have often landed up on welfare because of failed economic policies, because of the fraud and gambling of the finance sector, and because of the global recession which resulted. those on welfare are being asked to pay the price for the failure of others, and immigrants are to take the blame.

hurt and lonely

so here is the link to me on back benches last night, talking about the burqa, again. if you haven't had enough of discussions here over the last couple of weeks, have a look.


i wrote on my own blog a couple of nights ago about the korean family in christchurch who committed suicide, the last tragedy being the father who killed himself hours before the funeral for his wife and children. more details are emerging, with the herald publishing translated excerpts from the last blog post of one of the daughters:

"Even though a person smiles all the time, it doesn't mean the person has no sorrow inside. I am only human too," Holly wrote in her final entry.

"Even if a person doesn't talk much, it doesn't mean this person has no thoughts, and even if a person doesn't make any excuses, it doesn't mean the person is guilty...

"I am scared of people. Just because we never say we are ... hurt or lonely, don't think we ... are not hurt and not lonely."

this speaks so much of the potential isolation faced by migrants, and what the lack of appropriate support systems might lead to. many migrants come to this country with the dream of a better life, and high expectations of what they expect to experience here. after spending so much time, money and effort on migration, it becomes really hard to admit that the move was a failure or that you aren't coping.

i'd be interested in hearing the interaction immigration nz was having with this family, as well as potential difficulties the girls may have been facing at their school. as i've seen others say, there were signals that this family wasn't coping. the question then is how do we, as a society, ensure that people such as this are able to access the help they need.

good to see that the mental health foundation are taking some initial steps, but there needs to be a broader response than that. any solution must include immigration nz, who are one of the biggest sources of stress. and i'd like to see more responsibility being put on schools who rake in good money from international students, but aren't always interested in putting in the level of pastoral care that's required for them to settle successfully.

i said two days ago and reiterate today that there are some really important questions that need to be asked around this incident. i hope that the coroner's office will be taking responsibility for that.

walking while brown

via a friend on facebook, i wanted to share this piece on the new immigration laws in arizona:

Many are calling this law racist and calling the people who authorized it and support it racist as well. Debates under the theme “is it racist or not” are spreading like wildfire all over the nation. Debating racist intent is a waste of time and puts the focus in the wrong place. Am I disturbed that there are racist lawmakers, political leaders, and lobbyists? Do I wish we could be rid of all racist individuals in power? Of course. However, it does not really matter if the authors and supporters of this law are racist; it doesn’t matter if their intent was racist or not. Focusing attention there is a distraction to the issue and a no-win strategy. There is no way anyone can prove that these lawmakers are racist; engaging in that debate only polarizes communities and distracts us from the real issues of concern with this law and limit our strategies to successfully intervene.

What matters most is not the intent of this law or the intentions of the lawmakers, but the impact it will have. Our focus and our attention should be on the impact. Our debates, analysis, and decisions as to whether or not to support such a law should be based on impact. When focusing here, there is no doubt in my mind that the impact of this law will be racial profiling of brown people and the violation of civil and constitutional rights. Just ask any black man about the existence of racial profiling and you will know that “driving while black” is real, meaning all a black man has to do to get pulled over by the police is drive. Now, at least in Arizona, we will have not only driving while brown but also standing while brown, nodding while brown, and walking while brown.

read the rest of the whole piece to find out why.

expendable

you'll remember that i posted a little while back about a department of labour report on caring for the elderly. the authors of this report identified a looming shortage in the caregiver workforce as a result of our aging population, and their main recommendation was to import women from melanesia and "non-traditional" parts of asia.

and how do you think these women are going to be treated once they get here? as if they're expendable:

A Fijian caregiver has been refused a work permit and must leave New Zealand in one week despite a plea from her employer to allow her to stay because she is impossible to replace.

Sunita Khan, her husband Hamin and children Shahil, 17, and Pretisha, 15, must be out of New Zealand by September 21, but have vowed to fight Immigration New Zealand.

Her permit allowed both parents to work in New Zealand and to enrol their children at Wellington's Onslow College, which is also supporting their bid to stay in the country.

But late last month she had her application to extend the permit turned down because Immigration says there are plenty of Kiwis who could do her job....

"I give my heart to my job," Mrs Khan said. "It's not fair. I'm very sad."

this makes me so angry, i'm having trouble saying anything coherent. i could understand a denial of work visa if she had been made redundant and was unable to find work. but to kick here out, when she and her family are well-settled and when she is contributing to our economy and a valued worker, simply because of a downturn in the economy is unconscionable.